Monday, November 25, 2019

Milwaukee International Festival



I hope my readers had a good weekend. Friday after work Travalon and I were so tired that we stayed in the house and ordered a pizza – we were too tired to cook! Saturday we got up, and I made coffee that tasted amazing to both of us, but I have no idea why it would be so much better than our usual weekday coffee: same grounds, same water, same coffee maker, same cream. Maybe it was just because we could sip it at a relaxed pace while lounging in our reclining chairs? Then we went for a short hike at Castle Creek Conservancy, a surprisingly large wilderness area in Waunakee. The name is a puzzle, because the creek that flows through it is Six Mile Creek, not Castle Creek.

Then we drove separately to Milwaukee, because I was going to meet Tiffy to go to the International Festival, and when Travalon heard that’s what we were doing, he begged to come along because they have chicken paprikash there. (Looks like it is well past time for me to learn how to make this dish!) There were all kinds of food stands there, including the Slovak one making the chicken paprikash, and a Serbian one with desserts that are the same as Croatian desserts. I ate way too much! Then we watched dancing from all over the world, and the Ukrainian dancing is very athletic, but the Lithuanian dancing made me laugh because the music sounded like a chicken was singing along in parts. Not sure what kind of instrument that was… Travalon had a Steak Night with the guys, so he took off, and when Tiffy and I had watched enough dancing, we walked back to the car and passed Christmas lights we hadn’t seen during the day. It was a display you drive through, and they don’t advertise the price, so we didn’t find out how incredibly overpriced it was until we were in line and it was hard to turn back. The big “sell” was that there was music that went along with the display, but the radio station barely came in, so we just turned it off and sang Christmas carols ourselves. Then Tiffy suggested we go to the Hawaiian restaurant in Wauwatosa for dinner, where we had raw tuna and guava cake. It’s a little shop too, so I bought Kona coffee, macadamia nuts, and another Hawaiian shirt. What a fun day!

Yesterday Rich, Travalon, and I went to Crema Café for brunch, but they did not make as impressive a cup of hot cocoa for Rich as they had that time we went for Pa Hat’s birthday. It had been a beautiful day, but of course it cooled off by the time Travalon and I got to Cherokee Marsh for a hike, and then it started to rain on us. I went to a Baroque music concert, and Travalon went to see the new movie about the Battle of Midway. We watched the Packers game, but every time the Packers got some momentum, the refs called a ticky-tacky foul on them. Seriously, every first down was getting called back, and every time they stopped the 49ers on third down, there was some questionable call so the Niners got a fresh set of downs. The Pack did hurt themselves with a huge turnover early and the offense getting nothing started for the first half, although the defense did a pretty decent job for most of the game until they were just too worn out to stop anything. Once the score was really lopsided, the advertisers must have told the refs to lay off, because then it was like a switch flipped, and they stopped calling them on the Pack and even called a couple on the Niners. I am trying not to be cynical about it, but everyone noticed – the Lions fans on social media were all, “How does it feel?” Sometimes it does seem like they decide which teams are going to win, which was unnecessary last night because the Packers wouldn’t have won anyway, but really? Did they have to make it that hard for them?

Famous Hat


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